


echoes in the dark, alone

by nosecoffee



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Blatant Hurt, Body Dysphoria, Character Study, Dysphoria, Gen, Hurt, Jared is a changeling, Magic, breakdown - Freeform, identity crisis, illegal magic au, jared-centric, no comfort, self deprecation, self hatred, why can't my boy be happy, why do I always write Jared in pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: It makes Jared bones burn inside of him to think that his entire life is something built on the belief that he was just a Normal kid.Jared wonders if he was just too dumb to figure it out. Wonders why his parents - the Real Jared's parents - never noticed. His ears are pointed; one of the things they tell you to look out for when you look for Changeling's is pointed ears.(Or, more illegal magic au! Now with more pain!)





	echoes in the dark, alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Catherines_Collections](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/gifts).



> Title from "Lonely Hearts Club" by Marina and the Diamonds
> 
> Sequel to "now, we only own our hell"
> 
> I thought I was done with this au??? But apparently???? I was not???? Enjoy???? If you can????

It has been four days, thirteen hours, forty-three minutes and twelve seconds since he discovered what he truly is.

It would be bad enough if he was just a Mage. That would be bad enough, in itself. But that's not it. No, everyone else can hide who they truly are, they can all be content that they might, one day be hunted down for being who they are, but know it's not their fault. Jared doesn't have that kind of confidence.

That's not all there is, and it never will be. His family, the Kleinman's, his two little sisters, one little brother, mother and father - they are not his own. It makes his skin feel too tight over his bones, it makes his lungs crumple in his chest, it makes his head ache until he can't bare it.

Jared is a Changeling. Jared is a Faerie. Jared is twice as bad as Alana or Evan or the Murphy's.

Jared just wants everything to go away.

~

He discovered his powers when he was nine, and playing Mario Kart with his little sister - the Real Jared's little sister - Verity, and concentrated so hard that he beat her.

After that it was simply looking at himself in the mirror, focusing hard, until blue glowed from his eyes, and conductive traces climbed up his neck, the same shade of electric blue as his eyes, and the lights turned off.

Jared caused a blackout when he was nine, and figured out that he was a Mage.

~

It makes Jared bones burn inside of him to think that his entire life is something built on the belief that he was just a Normal kid.

Jared wonders if he was just too dumb to figure it out. Wonders why his parents - the Real Jared's parents - never noticed. His ears are pointed; one of the things they tell you to look out for when you look for Changeling's is pointed ears.

Of course, a lot of things make sense once he's really thought about the fact that he's just a Faerie in disguise as a human. The malicious intent behind the words that people strain to hear. The instinctual way he insists on buying people he cares about food. The way riddles and tricks and jokes seem to wind their way through his head.

He knows he has none of their powers, outside of their realm. He is no more a Faerie than he is a human, truly. But his heritage is there, and it's blinding him with tears that feel like acid to his eyes.

Jared has everyone he's needed - he has Connor and Zoe and Alana and Evan, but they'd never understand. They know what it's like to hide, but they'd never quite get how alone he feels, how isolated he's become. They'd never understand what it's like to have lived a lie, without his knowing.

He can't talk to his family - the Real Jared's family - either. They'd more likely turn him in to the authorities than sympathise with him and try to comfort him.

He aches.

~

The powers must be an extra curse he'd received from his deliverers. Faeries are born with magic, it's true, but nothing quite as powerful as Jared.

They must have really wanted him to suffer, really wanted to stir up some mischief, and added that tidbit for him to discover, hoping that he'd reveal himself to all the Normal people in town.

He understands the longing for mischief, the need for trouble, but something that cruel - that makes no sense to him.

~

Five days, two hours, seventeen minutes, and fifty-five seconds since he figured it out, and Jared lies awake up in bed wondering what his real name is. Wondering if they even bothered to give him a name before they swapped him and the Real Jared out for each other.

Five days, two hours, eighteen minutes, and fifty-two seconds since he figured it out, and Jared wonders if they killed the Real Jared. He wonders if maybe they just let the Real Jared grow up in the Faerie realm. He wonders if he's out there. He wonders if the Real Jared even knows that they were swapped. Wonders if he does know, wonders if he even cares.

Five days, two hours, nineteen minutes, and three seconds and Jared sneaks out his window.

~

Everyone knows that the abandoned orchard, just outside of town, is magical. Jared has every reason to find himself driving there.

He jumps the fence, crunches along the overgrown path and walks until he feels safe enough to scream. It tears out of his throat and Jared finds himself falling to his knees.

He begs the sky to take him back. He begs the wind to swap them again. He says he doesn't belong here, they'll kill him if they ever find out, they'll kill him and it'll all be over and he can't bare to think of it. He screams, he shouts, he slams his fists into the ground until they bleed and bruise.

There is no response. There will never be a response, he knows.

He cries until he feels dried up, he screams until he can't find his voice anymore. He falls asleep on the grass of the abandoned orchard, and wakes up in the backseat of his car, in his driveway.

Jared almost chalks it all up to a feverish dream, but the blood on his hands and bruises on his knees and fists say otherwise

Alana helps him when he breaks down in the computer lab, later that day, but he knows she'd never understand. She's the safest of all of them. She'd never know what it was like to live with the guilt of stealing someone else's life, someone else's home, someone else's family.

~

Jared feels all the guilt build up inside him, like a slowly inflating balloon, like a overheated computer. He feels himself begin to fizzle out. He can't stand it.

Everyone may think that his family - the Real Jared's family - worked it out. That they found a Changeling in their house and immediately turned him over to the authorities. In reality, Jared announces it at the dinner table, demonstrates his magic, and tells them, with as much confidence as he can muster, what he is.

They turn him in, immediately. Jared goes without a fight. He expects to be sentenced to death for what he is. His fate is much worse.

(Alana once told him that the police have no qualms over using magic for their own personal gain, and Jared understands what she means when strap him to a chair and they wipe his memory.)

~

Jared gets out into the foster system, and ends up living with a small family in San Fransisco for two years. He stays in San Fransisco, not really feeling bothered to leave, and gets a job at a repair shop, fixing people's old computers and stuff.

It never crosses his mind that he might be magic. It never crosses his mind that the point of his ears wasn't just a genetic quirk. It never crosses his mind that his weird roommate, Zoe, gives him sad looks because she remembers him, but he doesn't remember her.

Jared forgets, and maybe he sometimes feels something boiling his blood, something making his skin feel tight, and making his lungs crumple in his chest, but he never thinks that it's because he feels so out of place in his own body.

Jared never remembers any of it, and the only thing he has left from the life he had before, are the neat little scars on his fists, from where he banged his fists into the ground, with Faeries all around him, watching him as he broke in half.

 

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Tell me what you thought about this in the comments, and/or please leave me a kudos.
> 
> Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee.
> 
> Hope you liked it (or not)!


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